War. Wil’t please your grace to go along with us?
P. No I will sit and watch here by the king.
[Exeunt all but P. H.]
“Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow
Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
Oh polished perturbation! golden care!
That keepst the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night—sleep with it now!
Yet not so sound, and half so deeply sweet,
As he whose brow with homely biggin bound
Snores out the watch of night.”
K. Harry I know not
The meaning of the word you just have used.
P. What word, my liege?
K. The word I mean is “biggin.”
P. It means a kind of woolen nightcap, sir,
With which the peasantry are wont to bind
Their wearied heads, ere that they take their rest.
K. Thanks for your explanation, pray proceed.
P. “Snores out the watch of night. Oh majesty!
When thou dost pinch thy bearer thou dost sit
Like a rich armour, worn in heat of day
That scalds with safety.”
K. Scalding ne’er is safe
For it produces heat and feverishness
And blisters on the parched and troubled skin.
P. Pray interrupt not. “By his gates of breath
There lies a downy feather which stirs not.”
K. I knew not that there was one, brush it off.
P. “Did he suspire that light and weightless down
Perforce must move.”
K. And it hath moved already.
P. It hath not moved. “My gracious lord! my father!
This sleep is sound indeed, this is a sleep
That from this golden rigol hath divorced
So many English—”
K. What meaneth rigol, Harry?
P. My liege, I know not, save that it doth enter
Most apt into the metre.
K. True, it doth.
But wherefore use a word which hath no meaning?
P. My lord, the word is said, for it hath passed
My lips, and all the powers upon this earth
Can not unsay it.
K. You are right, proceed.
P. “So many English kings; thy due from me
Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood
Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,
Shall, oh dear father, pay thee plenteously:
My due from thee is this imperial crown
Which as—”
K. ’Tis not your due, sir! I deny it!
P. It is, my liege! How dare you contradict me?
Moreover how can you, a sleeper, know
That which another doth soliloquise?
K. Your rhetoric is vain, for it is true:
Therefore no arguments can prove it false.
P. Yet sure it is not possible, my liege!
K. Upon its possibility I dwelt not
I merely said ’twas true.
P. But yet, my liege,
What is not possible can never happen,
Therefore this cannot.
K. Which do you deny
That I have heard you or that I’m asleep?
P. That you’re asleep, my liege.
K. Go on, go on,
I see you are not fit to reason with.
P. “Which as immediate from thy place and blood
Derives itself to me. Lo, here it sits,—
Which heaven itself shall guard, and put the world’s whole strength
Into which giant arm, it shall not force
This lineal honour from me: this from thee
Will I to mine leave as ’tis left to me.”